Before purchasing a shirt, shoppers will run their hands over the fabric, look at the price tag and wonder how it will hold up in the washing machine. Some might even ask if it makes them look fat.

The one detail, however, that is rarely considered: What are the conditions like for the workers making the shirt?

A horrific fire that raced through a Bangladesh garment factory Nov. 24, killing 112 people, has put the spotlight — at least temporarily — back on those workers and their sometimes treacherous work environment.

The factory, owned by Tazreen Fashions Ltd., made clothing for several retailers around the globe including Wal-Mart, Sears and The Walt Disney Co. All three companies have distanced themselves from responsibility for the incident, saying they didn't know that their subcontractors were using the factory.

Holiday shoppers also have maintained their distance from the tragedy.

“Truthfully, I hadn't even thought about it,” Megan Miller of Philadelphia said as she walked out of the Disney Store in Times Square. “I had Christmas on my mind and getting my kids something from New York.”

Most shoppers from San Antonio to Cincinnati to Paris to Singapore said the same thing: They were aware of the fatal factory fire, but they weren't thinking about it while browsing stores in the days since. Brand name, fit and — above all — prices were on their minds.

“No, I don't pay attention to the labels (on clothes),” said Stephanie Miller, who was shopping at Rivercenter Mall on Friday afternoon. “I'm more about convenience, price and if it looks good.”

“When you talk to them about their biggest concerns, where something is made or the abuses in some country almost never show up,” said Britt Beemer, chairman of America's Research Group, which interviews 10,000 to 15,000 consumers a week, mostly on behalf of retailers. “The numbers are so small, I quit asking the question.”

There are those who want to make socially responsible purchases.

“I do pay attention to labels, because it should be made in America,” said Susan Inman, who was holiday shopping at Rivercenter Mall on Friday. “That's why I don't shop at Wal-Mart. I buy American whenever I can.”

But there is no widespread system in place to say where all the materials in a shirt come from, let alone whether it was made in a sweatshop or not.

A label saying “Made in USA of imported fabrics” doesn't provide as much information to shoppers as they might think. Maybe tailors assembled it under good working conditions, but what about the people who wove the fabrics?

Another label saying that a shirt is made from 100 percent organic cotton fails to say anything about the conditions of the factory in which it was made.

“What do they know at the point of sale about where it comes from, other than the tag?” said Paco Underhill, founder of Envirosell, which studies consumer behavior. “Our hearts are generally are in the right places. It's the question of making sure we have the knowledge and pocketbook to follow.”

And it's not just clothing. It is hard to tell where televisions or laptop components are made.

Companies selling products say they even struggle to tell. Work often is given to subcontractors who themselves use subcontractors. While many major companies stipulate ethics and standards that their subcontractors must follow, policing them is a costly, time-consuming process that sounds easier than it is.

In the case of the Bangladesh factory, Wal-Mart said it had received a safety audit showing the factory was “high-risk” and had decided months before the blaze to stop doing business with Tazreen. But it said a supplier had continued to use Tazreen without authorization.

It draws eerie parallels to New York's Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911, where 146 people died within 18 minutes of a fire starting in a factory with locked exits.

That fire was the catalyst for widespread changes in labor laws in U.S. But in the 100 years since, the desire for cheap clothing hasn't abated and costly labor has just shifted to factories overseas.

“To put it maybe too frankly, profit and efficiency and competition always trump safety and health,” said James Gross, a labor relations professor at Cornell University.

Los Angeles-based American Apparel promotes itself as a line of “sweatshop free” clothing. Its founder and CEO, Dov Charney, said that companies can control working conditions — they just need to bring production closer to home. American Apparel knits, dyes, cuts and sews all of its products in-house.

American Apparel spends more on labor, but it isn't as much as you would expect. Charney estimates that an imported T-shirt selling for $6 at Wal-Mart would cost about $6.30 if produced domestically thanks to the company's massive scale.

“I'm not paying more attention to labels, but I do pay attention to the stores I'm buying from,” said Libby Averyt, a Corpus Christi resident visiting Rivercenter Mall on Friday. “As a consumer, I look at the companies. (If a company were treating employees poorly), it would affect my decision to shop there, and it has in the past.”